


Highway

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Holding [27]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Hypothermia, Light Angst, M/M, These two being thick as always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 17:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19361590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: “Son on a bitch,” Brad mutters, climbing back into his car because at least then he won’t get any more wet. Of course he left the door open so all the slightly warmer air got let out. Closing the door, he knows it’s not smart to try turning the engine because possible gas leak or whatever, but maybe he could turn on the heater… nope. It won’t even turn on. “Fuck me, man.”And his phone is at 5%. Police? Tow truck? No. Bergy.





	Highway

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this Tumblr post](https://fandom-discussions.tumblr.com/post/185804591921/leave-your-whumpee-out-in-a-heavy-rainstorm-let).

“HEY! _HEY!_ GET BACK HERE, FUCKER!” Brad screams, waving his arms.

The fucker doesn’t turn around. Not that Brad was expecting him to. The bastard just ran him off the fucking road and into a boulder, and at forty miles an hour that’s pretty much the end of that. Now Brad’s standing out in a downpour like a jackass and has no way to get home. At least he doesn’t technically have anywhere to be - preseason’s all over and the actual season doesn’t start for two days, so he’s not in that big of a hurry to get home except that being outside his totaled car for all of thirty seconds means he’s already soaked to his skin.

“Son on a bitch,” Brad mutters, climbing back into his car because at least then he won’t get any more wet. Of course he left the door open so all the slightly warmer air got let out. Closing the door, he knows it’s not smart to try turning the engine because possible gas leak or whatever, but maybe he could run the heater… nope. It won’t even turn on. “Fuck me, man.”

And his phone is at 5%. Police? Tow truck? No. Bergy.

“Hello?”

“Uh, can you come get me?” Brad asks instead of returning the greeting. “My car’s fucking trashed, I’m out on the highway…” He briefly describes where he thinks he is and what the last sign he saw was. “My phone’s about to die, too.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m on my way, hang on. Are you hurt?”

“My nose is bleeding, it’s not broken though. That’s about it.”

“Okay, just - hang on, Marchy, I’m comi-”

His phone dies.

“God mother fucking dammit!” Brad yells, somehow resisting the urge to open the door of the car and smash it against the road.

He tries to stop and think for a second, but it’s hard. His clothes are clinging wetly to his skin, which is really fucking unpleasant and plus it’s not warm out today. Think, Brad. Think for once in your life. Okay. He’s not… that far away from Boston. Patrice should be here in probably half an hour or so.

Around the twenty eight minute mark, Brad goes back out into the driving rain to stand on the side of the highway just in case his car isn’t visible enough from the road. He checks his watch every thirteen seconds as the cold water droplets pelt him, re-soaking his clothes and matting down his hair. His nose stopped bleeding a couple minutes ago but blood residue drips into his mouth from the rain hitting his lip. Tapping his foot impatiently just gets more water in his shoe.

Brad starts rubbing his arms, regretting his earlier choice to wear jeans and a t-shirt with no jacket or sweatshirt. Patrice is always saying something about this to him, how he never dresses warm enough unless they’re headed to Canada for a game and that he should really learn better by now… well, Patrice is right, apparently. Patrice is always right about everything.

Speaking of Patrice, where the fuck is he? Brad’s somehow only now noticing that it’s hitting thirty eight minutes since his phone died. Assuming Patrice left immediately, which he definitely would’ve, he should’ve gotten here by now. Maybe there was traffic or something. Construction? Construction is still technically going on. Brad starts pacing along the side of the road, ten or twelve feet up from where he was standing and then back again. He checks his watch. Forty two minutes. What the hell, Patrice.

But Brad looks - it’d be really hard to see his car from the road, especially driving by at forty miles an hour. He has to stand out here as long as it takes, because Patrice won’t find him otherwise. He has to. No matter how fucking drenched he is, no matter how fucking cold he’s getting.

By fifty three minutes, Brad’s starting to lose feeling in the ends of his fingers and toes. He tries rubbing his hands together but they’re so wet that there’s no friction and they won’t warm. He scrunches his feet inside his sneakers and it does nothing. Where’s Patrice?

Sixty five minutes. He’s shivering really hard now, but he keeps getting colder.

Eighty minutes. Parts of his skin are starting to hurt.

One hundred and three minutes. Brad doesn’t want to keep standing up, but he does. If he sits he’s less visible. It’s mostly dark by now and he can’t risk it.

One hundred and thirty one minutes. He sits down because his legs are too tired.

One hundred and fifty seven minutes. Fifty seven? Fifty eight. One hundred and fifty eight minutes. He’s starting to lose track of how long it’s been.

One hundred and… one hundred and… one hundred and seventy six minutes. Fuck. It’s been almost three hours. No wonder he’s cold and tired. God, it hurts. It hurts to be cold. He’s not shivering anymore. Maybe he’s too tired to shiver.

Past the three hour mark. Brad doesn’t know anymore for sure. He just knows it’s more than three hours and Patrice hasn’t found him yet. It’s still raining. He’s fucking freezing. It hurts to breathe. He wants to take a nap.

“Brad! BRAD! Wake up!”

Something hits him in the face. Brad groans. His skin’s not working, he can’t feel anything. He tries opening his eyes and at first they’re too heavy. Finally he manages to crack one eye and there’s a car headlight, hitting one of those stupid bright yellow rain coats.

“Bergy,” he slurs out. “Y’rlate…”

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry,” Patrice babbles, dragging Brad up off the road by his arms. “I just left and then there was a really bad car crash, the whole road was blocked and it took so long for them to clear it again… god, Marchy, you’re freezing…”

“Yeah… hurts…”

“Okay… okay, come on.” He’s sat in the back of Patrice’s car and then his shirt is yanked off. “Lay down, I’m going to call a tow truck and then you’re coming back to my place.”

The heat in the car is turned all the way up and it’s like being burned, the sudden temperature difference. Brad whines in discomfort, tries to roll over. He’s too tired. The hot air keeps beating against his face and chest. It hurts, it hurts, he wants it to stop, wants the cold back because this is too painful. Then he starts shivering again and that hurts, too. Brad can barely move, his arms and legs are stiff like boards, but he manages somehow to curl into a ball. It feels so good to stop moving. He never wants to move again. The hot air is still burning him and he starts crying.

Patrice appears, stuffing himself into the back of the car even though he barely fits with Brad there. “Marchy, talk to me.”

“It hurts,” Brad whimpers. That’s all he can say or even think, just that he’s in pain.

Patrice takes off his shoes and then peels his socks away too, leaving more skin exposed to that horrible, scorching air. Brad whines but there’s nothing he can do to stop it from happening. Then Patrice forces him to uncurl and lies on him. This is somehow both better and worse at the same time. Because now he’s shielded from the heater blasting him, and it’s a much more pleasant warm feeling. On the other hand his brain sluggishly realizes that of course he’s gotten Patrice to lie down on him, while he’s injured and can’t even enjoy it. It seems stupid.

“I called a tow truck,” Patrice murmurs, shuffling them both a little so he can wrap himself more fully around Brad. “They’ll be here in a few minutes, and once they get here I can bring you home and get you warm.”

Brad just whimpers and presses his face further into his best friend’s throat. His hands and feet still really hurt and he just wants that to stop. Then one of his hands is getting seared and he flinches away with a yelp, or at least he tries to. Patrice shushes him.

“It’s okay, I’m just trying to warm you up… it’s okay, Brad.”

“Bergy, stop, you’re hurting me,” he begs.

“I know, it hurts and it sucks, but you don’t need to lose any fingers. It won’t be so bad in a few minutes. You’ve got such quick hands, Marchy. We need you to keep them. Take some deep breaths with me, in and out, come on…”

Brad can kind of feel again, on parts of his body. At least he can feel Patrice, how Patrice is breathing. He tries to mimic it. In and out. In. Out. Breathe the way Patrice breathes. Do what Patrice does… Brad can feel him…

“Marchy, wake up.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t fall asleep again, you need to stay awake for me, okay? It’s not good for you right now, you’re still too cold. You can sleep when we get home.” Then Patrice starts to move. “Shit, the tow truck’s here… don’t get up, Brad.”

The warm heaviness of his best friend vanishes, leaving him to be tortured by the car heater some more, but it’s not quite as bad as before. At least it doesn’t make him start crying again. Brad curls up like an animal trying to protect itself. In a way, that’s pretty much exactly what he is. His skin is burning again. He wants Patrice to come back, Patrice is warm and safe, Patrice will take care of him and make everything better.

It takes too long for Patrice to come back, and when he does, it’s not to lie down on Brad again. “Alright, let’s go home and get you warmed up.”

Brad doesn’t answer or open his eyes. He really wants the heater to go away, and for Patrice to cuddle him somewhere soft. He’s not interested in talking right now. His skin is still getting fried.

“Marchy? You awake? You know you’re not supposed to sleep right now,” Patrice calls back.

Brad still doesn’t say anything. He just thinks to himself that he wants his best friend to snuggle up with him. Well, actually he wants a whole lot more than that, but not right now. Snuggling would be enough… maybe with some kisses. Fuck it. He’s feeling greedy right now. If Patrice would just love him back then he’d be instantly warm and okay again. Brad knows that’s not going to happen, though. So he’ll take the snuggles. He’s also going to lie still and be quiet, because everything hurts and he doesn’t care if he’s not supposed to fall asleep, he’ll sleep if he fucking feels like it, thank you very little.

Then Patrice’s fingers brush lightly along his elbow, probably because it’s the only thing within reach while sitting in the front seat. “Wake up, _ange…_ you shouldn’t be sleeping right now, it’s bad for you when you’re this cold…”

Brad still doesn’t move. If Patrice won’t let him sleep, then he’ll still pretend to be out of spite. Patrice was late to come get him and that’s why he’s like this, Patrice stopped cuddling him to go talk to a tow truck, Patrice won’t let him sleep when he’s so fucking tired, Patrice doesn’t… Patrice doesn’t love him…

Brad’s fingers and toes are on fire, the heater is beating on his skin. He’s not completely here right now and he knows it, distantly, because the cold turned off his brain somehow. It leaves him raw on the inside, he just wants to be loved by this beautiful perfect man, but he’s an idiot who almost got himself frozen to death which only stacks yet another thing on the pile of his dumbass behaviors. The fingertips on his elbow are so light, like Patrice is scared to hurt him, and for fuck’s sake now he’s crying again. Like he hasn’t spent enough time already crying over the fact that he can’t have Patrice.

“Hey, it’s okay, Marchy.”

“No it’s not,” he whines, pulling his knees up to his chest and putting his face on them. Ugh. Bad idea, his pants are still all wet.

“Well, it’s going to be.”

“No it won’t.”

“Trust me, Marchy, yes it will. You’ll be warm again in a few minutes. I’m going to take care of you.”

It’s finally started to hurt less when the car stops. Not stopping like at a sign or a light, but for real. He feels the engine turn off and then he’s pulled out of the back seat and hurried through a door - just a few steps, but he’s shirtless and barefoot and the ground is fucking cold and it’s still raining. Every drop is like getting stung by a wasp and it can’t end soon enough. Patrice disappears for a second and then comes back, using an arm to take some of Brad’s weight while they go up the stairs. Why does his best friend have to live on the fucking third floor? It’s unreasonable.

Patrice finishes stripping him right there in the kitchen, then takes him into the bathroom and wraps him up in a bunch of fluffy towels. Brad hunches in on himself, shaking under the soft cloth. Another towel is brought to rub his head dry, then Patrice struggles him into a pair of sweatpants that are too long for his legs before bundling him up in a huge puffy blanket. Besides this blanket, Brad gets put in bed, where there’s four other blankets to go over top of him.

And then-

And then Patrice climbs into those five blankets with him.

Brad gets pulled into his arms, head on his chest, and is warm again. Well, not really, he’s still shivering. But Patrice is warm. Patrice is warm and strong and right here in the blankets, Brad almost wants to stay frozen just so that Patrice will keep being here and not let go, ever.

“Why did you just sit out there like that?” Patrice’s voice is so calm and gentle. He’s so lovely, even when Brad does stupid shit like this.

“You wouldn’t see me,” he mumble through his chattering jaw. “There was a ditch…”

Patrice starts stroking his hair. “I would’ve found you, Marchy, I promise. I wouldn’t have stopped until I found you.”

“Yeah, but… couldn’t see so great from the road…”

“I still would’ve found you.” Patrice’s lower face presses to Brad’s hair and he sighs through his nose. “I wish I got there sooner… a truck jackknifed in the intersection and there was some kind of hazmat something all over the place, there were guys running around in suits and everything, like in a movie. You should’ve seen me, I gave in to how everyone else was behaving and started banging on my horn and screaming at them through the windshield.”

“Oh, sorry I missed it. You’re so calm, it’d be funny as hell to watch you lose your shit.”

“Hey, look at that, you’re talking like a person again,” Patrice chuckles. “I knew hearing about me acting like an idiot would bring you back.”

“Hmph.”

“Oh, stop. It’s good. I want you to be okay.” He squeezes Brad a little with his arms. “It’s probably safe for you to sleep again, if you want. You don’t feel as cold to me as you did, and you’re dry now.”

Brad nods and relaxes into his friend’s hold of him. The next thing he knows is being lightly shaken by the shoulder. Something smells like food nearby. When Brad opens his eyes, it’s not stupidly hard to do so like it was before, even if the rest of his body still feels like he’s wearing lead bars.

“Hey, sit up, I have soup,” Patrice offers.

“What kind?”

“Just canned chicken noodle. It has microwave instructions on the can, that’s the only reason I know how to make it,” he admits.

Brad gets himself vertical and Patrice tucks one of the blankets around his shoulders, then hands him the mug and a spoon. Brad promptly ignores the spoon and just drinks it out of the mug, immediately scalding the inside of his mouth.

“Dammit,” he grumbles. Now it’ll hurt to eat anything for days.

“You should be more careful,” Patrice smiles. He climbs onto the bed and settles to the side, hugging Brad one-armed. “It’s okay, just give it a minute or two.”

Brad grumbles to himself a little. Then he grins: “You know when I was a kid and got a bruise or something my mom would always offer to kiss it and make it better.”

Patrice nods slowly, taking the mug from Brad and setting it aside before leaning over and kissing him. Brad’s surprised - _really_ surprised - but it doesn’t stop him from kissing back, because he’s thought about getting to do this for such a long fucking time so no way is he going to waste this chance. Patrice is warm and perfect; he’s always perfect. His mouth is soft and he tastes like coffee.

Then Brad’s being pushed lightly on his shoulders and he stops, panicked. “What?” Did he do something wrong?

“Lie back, I’m going to cuddle you.”

Oh. Okay, that’s fine. Brad can totally do that. He relaxes onto his back and then Patrice is under the covers with him again, wrapping around him and kissing him again. All Brad can think to himself is: more. More of this. More kisses, more cuddles. More of Patrice in general. Brad loves him so much.

And then a really scary idea occurs to him. He pulls away slightly. “Are you just doing this because you feel bad for me, Bergy?”

Patrice looks really offended by that. “No. Of course not.”

“Then why?”

“Because I want to. Do you need me to stop?”

“No.”

“Okay then.”

“But why did you wait so long?”

“You never asked me to kiss you before. I thought… Brad, you say ‘I love you’ kind of a lot, and not just to me or to your family. You say it to all our friends when we’re out on the ice. It’s really hard to tell where the line is with you, and I didn’t want to force things.”

“I never mean it the same way for you as I do when I say it to them, though.”

“But how was I supposed to know that?” Patrice asks gently. “I tried to pay attention and see if anything you did couldn’t fit in just a normal friendship. By your standards, everything fit. I couldn’t tell.”

“That’s because I thought your weren’t interested,” he answers, maybe a little bitter. Brad’s not mad, but he does feel like an idiot. As if that’s not a familiar feeling for him anyway. “Are you interested?”

“I’m _very_ interested, Marchy.” Patrice kisses the end of his nose and then his forehead. “I think you soup is the right temperature, now.”

Brad sits up only as long as it takes to drink the damn soup, then lays down in Patrice’s arms again. “So I’ll have to get a new car now.”

“Yeah. I can give you a ride tomorrow. We’ll leave early, go to your place so you can get dressed, and then head to the rink.”

“Cool.”

Patrice squeezes him. “Please don’t ever freeze like that again, Marchy. You scared me.”

“I’ll try. I didn’t like it, either.”

They spend the rest of the day snuggling.

**Author's Note:**

> Realistically, Patrice should probably have taken Brad to the hospital, but that's less fun.
> 
> Author is starved for attention, especially the positive kind. Please comment.


End file.
